What's even more tragic than Trump''s appalling comments?

By Ruth Marcus, Deputy editorial page editor
January 12 at 8:13 PM

The past week of the Trump presidency felt like that point in a video game when you’ve reached a new level and the widgets suddenly start flying at you too fast to dodge. There was an attack on free speech. On an independent judiciary. And with the president’s horrific reference to “shithole countries,” on America’s tradition of offering a welcoming hand to the downtrodden. So much so quickly that it’s difficult to process it all.

But we must. To fail to note these departures from normalcy — from the institutions and values that have actually made America great all along — is to tacitly countenance the outrage and, worse, to risk that we will begin to fail to recognize it as such.

So, fresh from having dispatched his personal lawyers to make the laughable but, coming from a president, nonetheless scary effort to halt publication of a critical book, President Trump renewed his assault on free speech. “Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness,” Trump announced during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

In fact, our libel laws embody American values, balancing First Amendment imperatives with the need to provide a remedy for egregiously irresponsible conduct.

It’s easy to dismiss Trump’s words as more ignorant bloviating, without real-world consequences. After all, libel laws — beyond the constitutional limits placed on them — are essentially a state matter. And yet, it was scary enough when threats to “open up the libel laws” came from a presidential candidate. This man is the president. He swore an oath to defend a Constitution about which he knows little and cares less.